Saturday night’s game for the ages between D.C. United and the Columbus Crew at RFK Stadium and Sunday’s capitulation by a stubborn FC Dallas squad at Seattle’s CenturyLink Field ended the race for the 10 MLS Cup playoff berths.

But the final weekend of the regular season won’t lack for intrigue. Only one of the five Eastern Conference contenders, Sporting Kansas City, is assured of avoiding the play-in game. Meanwhile, out west, the league’s most significant single-season record might fall after 16 years.

The San Jose Earthquakes, who clinched the second Supporters Shield in club history this weekend, remain atop the Sporting News power poll. But the high-scoring Earthquakes have yielded more goals (42) than six of the nine other playoff qualifiers. They’re No. 1 for now, but may not be tight enough in back to be considered a prohibitive championship favorite.

RISING

California Clásico Contention. Everyone outside of British Columbia should be hoping the favored LA Galaxy dispense with the Vancouver Whitecaps in the Western Conference wild card game so we can all enjoy the fireworks sure to be produced during an Earthquakes-Galaxy quarterfinal series.

All three San Jose-LA games this year have been classics. The Earthquakes recovered from two-goals down to defeat their Southern California rivals twice this season before bouncing back from a pair of one-goal deficits in Sunday’s 2-2 draw.

The Galaxy, which played without Landon Donovan (knee) and David Beckham, were not impressed. San Jose has taken some heat this season for its physical play in the offensive third, and now the league’s reigning defender of the year has weighed in on the subject.

“I think those guys are a bunch of jokes, the way they play the game. It was just obnoxious. And, you know, it wasn't even fun out there. It was terrible,” Omar Gonzalez told reporters on Sunday.

“It all starts when the ball's on the other side of the field and you're just running and all of a sudden you get blindsided. You just get checked by (forward Steven) Lenhart or something. It's just dumb (expletive) like that happens every time, and that's not the way the game should be played. It's embarrassing.”

Striker Robbie Keane added, "We played well against 12 men, with the referee," according to the Los Angeles Times.

Earlier last week, Galaxy coach Bruce Arena said he was more concerned with the Major League Baseball playoffs and his new grandson than his team’s previous losses to San Jose. To add to the drama, around 100 Galaxy fans were escorted from Buck Shaw Stadium during the second half following an altercation with police and San Jose supporters that resulted in seven arrests. There were no injuries reported.

Earthquakes marksman Chris Wondolowski, who scored the equalizer on Sunday, said, “To win the season series against the Galaxy is special.”

Imagine how much more meaningful it would be to oust the champs from the playoffs. Bring it on.

Ben Olsen, MLS coach. The only D.C. United player who appeared in the club’s most recent playoff game and remains with the organization is Ben Olsen, who was a midfielder back in 2007 and now is in his second full season as head coach.

It’s been a long time since MLS’s most decorated club advanced to the postseason, and it appeared the five-year wait would be extended when captain and reigning league MVP Dwayne De Rosario was injured in early September. It was difficult to imagine D.C. winning without its talismanic catalyst.

“When you build a team around a guy and he goes down, you’re going to have to change things a little bit,” Olsen said last week.

His players have bought into a more conservative, defense-oriented approach and he said following Saturday’s wild 3-2 win over Columbus that the team has “grown closer since Dwayne went down. … Everybody understands we have to be a real team now. We have to commit to each other and bail each other out.”

United has done that, and that’s a sign of good coaching. Olsen won’t win the league’s coach of the year award, but his work over the past six weeks suggests he’ll a candidate for years to come.

Consolation for Disappointed Clubs. A brutal season for the Portland Timbers will end with a smile next weekend as the club parades the Cascadia Cup before its loyal fans at Jeld-Wen Field. The Timbers claimed the trophy for the first time since joining MLS with an improbable 1-0 win at the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Portland finished 3-1-2 in the six games against its Pacific Northwest rivals this year. While Vancouver and the Seattle Sounders head to the MLS playoffs, the Timbers will take a sliver of solace in getting one over on their rivals.

“To get it at this point it means a lot to this group because we never put our heads down, we continued to fight and work hard for one another and it’s a tribute to everyone on this team because we’ve been through a lot this year,” goal scorer Jack Jewsbury said.

In Columbus, the Crew have been quite competitive since the midseason additions of playmaker Federico Higuaín and forward Jairo Arrieta (8-5-3 since late July) and have a star in net in goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum. The club also has enjoyed impressive success at the reserve and youth level (two MLS Reserve League, two USL national Under-20 and two USYSA national Under-19 titles in the past three years) that may bode well for years to come.

FC Dallas will miss the postseason two years after falling in the MLS Cup final, but should feel good about its prospects if its top talent can stay healthy. David Ferreira started just 15 games this year, Brek Shea started 20 and leading scorer Blas Pérez started 18.

"I would imagine that we were missing half of our salary cap for majority of the season. So it's difficult to compete without that level of talent on the field,” FCD goalkeeper Kevin Hartman said.

With the pieces in place, Dallas should be a threat once again in 2013.

FALLING

Momentum at Red Bull Arena. Shut out in two consecutive games despite fielding the likes of Thierry Henry, Tim Cahill and Kenny Cooper, the New York Red Bulls have won just one of their past five and aren’t exactly on a roll heading into the postseason.

The Red Bulls played well in Saturday’s 0-0 tie with Sporting Kansas City but couldn’t find the net. MLS’s highest-paid team now needs a win at the Philadelphia Union on Saturday (1:30 p.m. ET, NBC) and some help to avoid next week’s play-in game.

“I’ve said it time and time again, we will score goals,” Cahill told reporters. “We’ve got some good individuals, some good quality players that will score some goals.”

Those players will have to come through starting Saturday.

Vancouver’s Playoff Credentials. There may be no team in North American sports history that’s backed into a playoff berth like the Whitecaps, who clinched this weekend despite a 1-0 home loss to floundering Portland and a miserable 1-6-2 record since mid August.

The Galaxy may feel like their upcoming wild card matchup at The Home Depot Center is as close as one can get to a bye while still having to step on the field.

"The team doesn't quite have the culture that it needs," coach Martin Rennie told reporters at BC Place. “To be successful, and get to where we want to get to, players have to be able to play in big games."

His best hope now? Hope LA looks past Vancouver toward a potential series with rival San Jose.

“We’re going to be the underdogs for sure and we know that,” Rennie said. “A lot of times, the team that’s the underdog and maybe the team that scrapes its way into the playoffs is a team that can be dangerous and a team that is hard to play against.”

Roy Lassiter’s Hold on the Record. So much about MLS has changed since the inaugural season. The league hardly is recognizable. But Lassiter’s place in the record book has remained. The speedy forward tallied 27 regular season goals for the now-defunct Tampa Bay Mutiny back in 1996. Several players have come close since, but none has matched that total.

On Saturday in Portland, Wondolowski needs one goal to tie Lassiter and two to snatch the record for himself when the Earthquakes visit the Timbers (6:30 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network). Some will argue for an asterisk—the MLS season now is 34 games long compared to 32 in 1996—but Lassiter won’t be among them. The former star, who won several titles with D.C. United after leaving Tamp Bay, was at the San Jose-LA game on Sunday and will be in attendance at Jeld-Wen Field.

“I’m really happy for him,” Lassiter told MLSSoccer.com. “I have mixed feelings about it, of course, but again, I agree, records are meant to be broken. I think Wondolowski is well, well deserving of that record.”